Privacy while attaining personal hygiene is important to all self-respecting individuals but it is especially important for the physically disabled individual who, heretofore, has been unable to totally clean-up after completing his/her natural function. Moreover, the presence of an attendant for someone unable to care for himself after toilet use can be an embarrassment for both people involved. Thus a need exists for means to provide an acceptable self-controlled alternative cleansing method for such individuals. While effort has been made to provide such equipment in the past, the prior art units have not been totally acceptable and those which were available were not universally obtainable for a variety of reasons.
These devices, generally referred to as "bidets", are expensive as separate units. Furthermore, many require installation in the bathroom while the bathroom is under construction. Furthermore, after construction, installation of such a fixture to a toilet facility required extensive and expensive remodeling.
Some portable bidet adapters have been suggested by the prior art, but not one is totally satisfactory for a variety of reasons. First, some are restricted to permanent installation to the tank and/or toilet seat and thereby deprive the owner of the versatility obtainable from a portable unit. Others had no independent means to control the flow of water to it other than the control provided by a nearby faucet leaving the user with substantially no control during the process and grossly inconvenient interludes while trying to reach and operate the controls. Still others presented safety hazards because they required water hoses which were draped over the front of the stool. Others depended on electrical sub-assemblies for control and therefore were much more costly to produce and presented a potential risk of electrical shock. Still others had to be removed after each use which was a difficult, if not impossible, task for the physically disadvantaged person and, as such, required the frequent presence of another person in the privacy of the toilet.
Other prior devices of general relevance to the evolution of the bidet art but which failed to provide a device which fulfilled all of the needs of the handicapped person, particularly the bilateral amputee, are described by Rathbone in U.S. Pat. No. 1,346,252 who requires the installation of a special toilet seat; Koppin in U.S. Pat. No. 1,521,892 who requires an independent yoke to support a fluid control valve; as well as Parisini, U.S. Pat. No. 2,104,271; Bigio, U.S. Pat. No. 2,278,055; Popil, U.S. Pat. No. 2,344,561; Van Houten, U.S. Pat. No. 3,430,267; Marcard, U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,124; Alexander, U.S. Pat. No. 4,069,519; Fushimi, U.S. Pat. No. 4,340,980; Ingels, U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,311; and Aoyama, U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,423.
As is apparent from the foregoing art, the use of a sprayhead to cleanse the operator is per se old including the concept of pivoting the sprayhead into and out of operative juxtaposition with the operator's bottom. However, the prior art attempts to create a bidet conversion assembly that was portable, inexpensive to build, easy to install, simple to operate and which created no untoward safety concerns have not been successful. It is toward the realization of that goal that the present invention is directed.